f these plaits is
then smeared with a mixture of sandal-wood dust and either gum water or
paste of dhurra flour. On the last day of the operation, each tiny
plait is carefully opened by the long hairpin or skewer, and the head is
ravissante. Scented and frizzled in this manner with a well-greased tope
or robe, the Arab lady's toilet is complete. Her head is then a little
larger than the largest sized English mop, and her perfume is something
between the aroma of a perfumer's shop and the monkey-house at the
Zoological Gardens. This is considered "very killing," and I have been
quite of that opinion when a crowd of women have visited my wife in our
tent, with the thermometer at 95 degrees C, and have kindly consented to
allow me to remain as one of the party.

It is hardly necessary to add that the operation of hairdressing is
not often performed, but that the effect is permanent for about a
week, during which time the game becomes so excessively lively that the
creatures require stirring up with the long hairpin or skewer whenever
too unruly. This appears to be constantly necessary from the vigorous
employment of the ruling sceptre during conversation. A levee of Arab
women in the tent was therefore a disagreeable invasion, as we dreaded
the fugitives; fortunately, they appeared to cling to the followers of
Mahomet in preference to Christians.

The plague of lice brought upon the Egyptians by Moses has certainly
adhered to the country ever since, if "lice" is the proper translation
of the Hebrew word in the Old Testament. It is my own opinion that the
insects thus inflicted upon the population were not lice, but ticks.
Exod. 8:16: "The dust became lice throughout all Egypt;" again, Exod.
8:17: "Smote dust... it became lice in man and beast." Now the louse
that infests the human body and hair has no connection whatever with
"dust," and if subject to a few hours' exposure to the dry heat of the
burning sand, it would shrivel and die. But the tick is an inhabitant
of the dust, a dry horny insect without any apparent moisture in its
composition; it lives in hot sand and dust, where it cannot possibly
obtain nourishment, until some wretched animal lies down upon the spot,
when it becomes covered with these horrible vermin. I have frequently
seen dry desert places so infested with ticks that the ground was
perfectly alive with them, and it would have been impossible to rest on
the earth.

In such spots, the passage in Exod